He pulled a chair over to the flag and stood on it. The cloth was encased in glass, and he hoped it would be as willing a trophy as the sketches. He was wrong. The glass was screwed into brass anchors every few inches. There were dozens of them.
Still, Devon figured he had time and he got to work. Concealed under his coat was a tool belt that had a number of screwdrivers. He pulled one out and sized it correctly, then attacked the first of the screws.
They were old. They had not quite fused to their anchors, but it was close. He was breathing heavily, throwing his shoulder into the work, and he was through three screws before he admitted to himself it was worthless. He pounded on the glass with the butt of his screwdriver to see whether the glass would break, allowing him an easy shortcut, but it just gave sharp cracking sounds echoing throughout the building. He raised his hand to his head and wiped the sweat away from his brow in defeat.
A moment later the Irishman poked his head into the room. He looked around the place and saw the broken frames on the ground. He looked at Devon up on the chair, screwdriver in hand. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Devon replied. “I’m helping myself.”
“The fuck you are.”
“What’s your problem? I’m not messin’ with you, am I? You didn’t want my help, fine. But I’m not gonna just stand around waiting.” He turned and looked at the flag again; it wasn’t going to be a willing trophy. Still, there might be some consolation. On the top left corner was a bronze eagle capping the exposed flagpole. That, at least, should be easy enough. He reached up and wiggled it, and to his relief it budged without much effort. He began unscrewing it.
“Get down from there!” the Irishman hissed.
“Fuck off.” He kept at his work.
The man spoke again. “I said get down.” The command was punctuated with the sound of a hammer being drawn back on a revolver. Devon didn’t turn around.
“What are you going to do? Shoot me? That’d turn this into a whole other fuckin’ scene, wouldn’t it? Even if the cops don’t find you, what are you going to tell my people? Besides, I got the car keys, and you don’t know how to get back to Southie.” It was a risk, but a calculated one. The man was an asshole, but he was also a professional. Leaping from robbery to murder wasn’t worth the risk. Devon kept turning the eagle faster and faster, the sweat pouring off his brow.
“I’m warning you,” the Irishman said.
“Fuck off.” As he said the words, fear sliced through his heart. Was he pushing this too far?
He heard a loud crack and he stumbled forward slightly on the chair, almost falling off. His hand flew to his chest, feeling for an exit wound. It took a moment for him to realize he hadn’t been shot. In his exuberance, the eagle had separated from its screw and had fallen through his fingers to the ground. The noise he had heard was that of it hitting the floor.
Devon straightened himself and stepped down off the chair. He picked up the eagle and held it up, showing off his prize. He was smiling.
The Irishman was still pointing his gun at him. He took two steps forward and swung the butt of the gun down on the space where Devon ’s neck met his shoulder. It was a well-placed blow. Devon nearly lost consciousness as he tumbled to the ground, and his arm went numb. By taking the soft flesh, the Irishman had inflicted the pain without spilling any blood that might be used to track them down. As Devon opened his eyes, he was staring into the barrel of the gun.
“Get this straight, lad,” the Irishman said. “This is my job. You’re hired help. Do as I say, or I will kill you.” He pushed the barrel of the gun into Devon ’s eye.
“Your job?” Devon said through the pain. “You’re in Boston, asshole; this is Jimmy Bulger’s job. I work for him.”
“He works for me on this,” the man replied. “Remember that.” He put his gun back in its shoulder holster and turned and left the room.
Devon didn’t take anything else from the room. It took a moment before he felt able to drag himself onto his feet. He gathered up the sketches he’d already pulled from the wall and rolled them up. Then he picked up the eagle, put it in his coat pocket, and stumbled back through the galleries toward the staircase. He could hear the Irishman, still hard at work in the room to the right of the stairs, and he walked in that direction.
The room was immense, much larger than any of the galleries Devon had seen on the far side of the building. The ceiling was carved wood and the walls were covered in large, heavy oils that appeared far more substantial than the religious scenes Devon had seen, or even the portraits he’d found fascinating in the room he’d pillaged.
The Irishman was working efficiently: the floor was littered with the waste of several heavy gilded frames. Canvases were rolled in a pile near the door. “How many more?” Devon asked. The Irishman didn’t reply. “How many more?” Devon asked again.
“Just one here. There’s one more on the list, but it’s downstairs.” The Irishman moved over to a heavy, dramatic oil of a seascape. The water in the painting roiled, and a large ship was being tossed about, completely at the whim of fate. Devon could relate.
The Irishman grabbed the heavy painting by its sides and struggled to lift it off its perch. As he did, an alarm sounded. It pierced the silence and both men jumped. The Irishman nearly dropped the painting.
Devon ran toward the stairway. There was nothing in the information they had been given about such alarms, and none of their activity had triggered anything similar. Nonetheless, there was every possibility that the police were already on their way. They had to get out. “Come on!” he shouted. “Hurry the fuck up!”
He was at the staircase when he realized that the Irishman wasn’t following. He was tempted to leave anyway, but he knew it wasn’t an option. If the Irishman was caught, Devon was screwed; if not with the cops, then with Bulger. He turned back and looked at the door to the gallery. As he did, he noticed that the sound from the alarm was weaker where he was.
He headed back to the gallery. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
The Irishman was standing over a small electronic device on the floor. He kicked it hard, and the alarm skipped a beat. He kicked it a second time, harder, and the plastic casing smashed, the alarm dying instantly. “It’s internal,” the Irishman said. “To keep the museum visitors from knocking the painting. It’s not hooked into the system.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Aye. I’m sure.”
“How sure?”
The two men looked at each other, and Devon could see the shadow of doubt in the Irishman’s eyes. “I’m sure,” he said again.
“We got to get out of here,” Devon said.
“We’re finishing the job.”
“Fine. Then finish it fuckin’ quickly.”
The Irishman’s eyes narrowed in anger, but it wasn’t directed at Devon. He nodded. “Quickly. Give me a hand.”
The two of them lifted that seascape off its hanger and set it down on the floor. The Irishman pulled out a straight blade; he clearly wasn’t going to waste time dismantling the frame. He stuck the point of the blade into the canvas at the edge of the frame. With four quick, brutal cuts he freed it, leaving behind a small frame of canvas that had once been a part of the masterpiece. He rolled it up and placed it with the pile of the other works. He pulled two cloth bags out of his jacket. He opened one and slipped the paintings into it. He tossed the second to Devon. “Put those into this,” he said, nodding to the drawings Devon had taken from the gallery on the other side of the museum.